Laura Walker

Photograph of Laura Walker
Senior Visual Experience Engineer, Apple, Cupertino CA
Ph.D.

I completed my BS in Chemical Engineering at MIT and PhD in Vision Science at UC Berkeley. At Berkeley, I studied with Dr. Jitendra Malik using psychophysics to validate computer vision algorithms. During my postdoctoral training with Drs. Preeti Verghese and James Coughlan at Smith-Kettlewell, I developed a computational model of eye movements and continue to apply and develop these models to predict how changing eye movements can improve vision for people different retinal diseases. My most recent project examines the impact of central vision loss on eye-hand coordination. The ultimate goal is to take what is learned in the laboratory and translate it into low vision rehabilitation therapies.

Publications

Journal Articles

Ghahghaei, S., & Walker, L. (2016). The crowding factor method applied to parafoveal vision. Journal Of Vision, 16(11), 7.
Mackeben, M., Nair, U. K. W., Walker, L., & Fletcher, D. C. (2015). Random Word Recognition Chart Helps Scotoma Assessment in Low Vision. Optometry And Vision Science, 92, 421.
Tyson, T. L., Walker, L., Ma-Wyatt, A., & Fletcher, D. C. (2015). Eye-hand reference frames misalign after central field loss. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 56(7). (Original work published 2015)
Walker, L., Verghese, P., & Coughlan, J. (2006). Eye movements incorporate knowledge of part structure. Journal Of Vision, 6, 482–482.
Walker, L., Verghese, P., & Coughlan, J. (2005). Modeling eye movements in a shape discrimination task. Journal Of Vision, 5, 921–921.
Tyson, T. L., Walker, L., Ma-Wyatt, A., & Fletcher, D. C. (2014). Adapting the oculomotor reference frame. Journal Of Vision, 14(10). Retrieved de http://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2144536&resultClick=1 (Original work published 2014)
Walker, L., Coughlan, J., Verghese, P., & Malik, J. (2005). An information maximization model of eye movements. Advances In Neural Information Processing Systems, 17, 1121-8.
Walker, L., Verghese, P., & Coughlan, J. (2007). Where to look next? Eye movements reduce local uncertainty. Journal Of Vision, 7, 6.
Walker, L., & Malik, J. (2004). When is scene identification just texture recognition?. Vision Research, 44, 2301–2311.
Walker, L. (2009). Uncertainty reduction as a theory for fixation selection. Journal Of Vision, 9, 11–11.

Projects

Parafoveal Crowding

Crowding increases with eccentricity, and is most readily observed in the periphery. During natural, active vision however, central vision plays an important role. Measures of critical distance to estimate crowding are difficult in central vision, as these distances are small. Any overlap of flankers with the target may create an overlay masking confound. The crowding factor method avoids this issue by simultaneously modulating target size and flanker distance and using a ratio to compare crowded to uncrowded conditions. This method was developed and applied in the periphery (Petrov &…

SKERI-VF

Walker et al (Renninger, Psomadakis, Dang & Fletcher, 2008) suggested a novel method to estimate the monocular scotoma area from perimetry data in macular degeneration based on (i) an optic-disc based estimation of the location of the fovea and (ii) the increase in the receptive field size with eccentricity. Here, Dr Walker and I introduce a new GUI that applies this method to data from the Optos OCT/SLO.

Collaborators

Internal

Mentors